Racing Should Probably Ensure Nobody Wanders Off

Working Tuesdays in the high school and university summers as a kid was fun. Tuesday was mine tour day and instead of a 12 hour shift of bad things, I'd be getting paid hardhat wages to be a junior guide. My main job during the tours -  according to the salty underground mine vet leading them - was pretty simple:

"Make sure no one wanders off."

The 3,200 foot level was older, wider and fairly nice (as far as gold mines go) for tour goers, but there were a couple red flags. At one point there was a hole in the drift wall with only a few four by eights blocking it. On the other side was a 1,300 drop to the 4,500 level. Later, there was a down drift that I'm pretty sure led to China. My job was to follow the group and "make sure no one wanders off". That was probably sound advice.

Of late we've seen horse racing more and more under the microscope and it's been big news; especially big for a sport so dependent on the public and governments for its funding. And I don't think I'm telling tales out of school to note that the responses have not been optimal. Whether on social media, through press conferences, or with media contacts, it feels like the sport is flying around in a hundred directions. Everyone is wandering off.

This issue is a microcosm in a sport with disparate factions. There are a vast number of fiefdoms, and some of these factions see crisis as a Rahm Emanuelesque opportunity (lasix anyone?). Horsepeople and others have their own issue of the day when something happens.

It's left to track management to steer the ship through the waters, and not only are they different from place to place, how are they supposed to handle something like this well?

Michael Beychok noted, not long after the Santa Anita story broke, that his firm - a crisis management joint - was available to help. He was confused by much of the strategy.

I saw seasoned observers like Jessica Chapel speak of the unfocused (and sometimes unavailable) social media response during the same period, and she made some good points.

Michael and Jessica were both right, in my view.

If a crisis situation happens in Louisiana, or New York, or California or Kentucky, the sport needs a playbook; it needs to ensure nobody is wandering off. I believe the sport needs someone who knows crisis management to craft this strategy before its needed, not after. It must follow a social media response playbook, so an employee stops wondering if he or she should ever hit send.

I don't know who'd pay for it, or run it, or what umbrella it'd fall under; I certainly don't want this to be yet another "we need a central office" thing. But there's clearly a better way than what we've been witnessing. Someone out there should be able to make it happen. I'm sure Mike and Jessica are easy to find.

Have a nice Tuesday everyone.

5 Ways to Fix the Preakness

There's been a lot of hand wringing lately about the Preakness. People are worried about soft fields, trainers who need a small epoch to have their charges ready to run back, and other things.

Fortunately that's what I'm here for.

No, I'm not going to focus on moving the race out a week or two, that's first level stuff. You come here for deeper, heavy, high-brained thought and I'm going to deliver.

Here are my 5 ways we can bring the Preakness back to the glory it deserves.

1. Move the Race to Gulfstream - The Stronach Group owns both racetracks, so this is easy. Plus, it seems Gulfstream is so popular they needed to buy a western Gulfstream track so they can run even more $7,500 claimers.

The celebrities will be better in Florida with local residents like Tiger Woods, Donald Trump and the guy who overacted all his scenes on CSI Miami. All Baltimore has for famous residents, really, is Larry Collmus and he'll already be there.

Florida also has medication rules where you are pretty much encouraged to run on something, so there will be no bad press with positive tests. And they have a big ass statue of Pegasus, who is not really a horse, but most casual fans don't know that.

The time for change is now.

2. Major Suspensions for Kentucky Derby Winners Who Don't Come to Pimlico/Gulfstream - We all saw Country House this past weekend. His stirring stretch drive where he dug in to beat everyone except the winner was spine-tingling.

Bottom line - We want Country House - no we need Country House - in the gate at Gulfstream or Pimlico.

From now on, I propose that when a Derby winner (even a kinda winner) doesn't show up for leg two of the Crown, his or her trainer is suspended a month. And this is not one of those suspended a month where they were planning a family vacation, it's a real month. As well, paper trainers like Todd Fletcher or Dick Rutrow aren't accepted in their place.

3. Two words - Keg and Asus

4. Make the Races Easier to Handicap - I know what you're saying, "Keeneland has already done that", but let's unpack it a bit.

The races are on national TV, we're going for a new audience and we're selling our sport. For the love of Pete, take away the larger fields that are impossible to study, and all those complex bets no one can ever hope to figure out. We need fields with only a few possibles, racing roulette and some over/unders.

You know what they say, pole vaulting is hard, racing should not be.

5. Bring Back the Infield - One of the worst things the Preakness did was try and make the infield safer. I mean, seriously, these are kids who eat Tide Pods, they're not exactly doing calculus.

I'd go with cheaper booze and more urinals for them to jump. I'd go with $5 admission so they spend more on gambling and booze, just like we want them to. I'd even look at charging 50% juice on those infield machines. It's time to bring back the infield to its rightful glory.

Those are 5 very achievable, high brow ways to make the Preakness great again. I'm sure you have more ideas of your own, and if they're as good as mine, I'll post them here at a later time.

Have a nice Friday everyone.

The Reseller Betting Ecosystem

Reselling, affiliate selling, whatever you'd like to call it is alive and well in pretty much every free enterprise business. This was on display yesterday as Fox Sports inked a deal with an existing gambling company to provide a betting app under their huge name brand.

This will be one of the first visible impacts of the FOX Bet-Stars Group deal. https://t.co/0sQQaKTgW0

— Dustin Gouker (@DustinGouker) May 9, 2019

This, and other deals, are important to the underlying business - in this case, simply "sports betting" - because you have dozens and dozens of companies competing for the betting dollar. This means ads on Fox Sports' events and talk shows (targeted to specific states of course), TVG pushing the Fan Duel product, and your average every day online betting site pushing offers and enticements.

This is exactly what we've - and the wagering community - spoken about for a long time regarding the ADW space in racing as it has shrunk.

Crowding out ADW's have snuffed out advertising dollars, lower takeout and enticements.

Increasing signal fees or adding source market fees - something this sport loves to do - stops competition. And stops rebating for the small players (rest assured, the big players are okay!).

Other gambling companies know this, for the most part, and this system works as planned. It's one reason why they're winning customers, and racing continues to struggle.

Have a nice Thursday everyone.